2016 in Review

Popular opinion is that this year wasn’t that great. In many ways I agree. But I’ve also been incredibly fortunate this year – in health and work and travel and more, I’ve been very lucky, and had a lot of hard work pay off.

This is the week we all seem compelled to think about all this, right? To look back, to take stock. It’s cliched. But I’m not immune.

And so, in that vein, here’s what I wrote here this year, all tidied up in a nice list sorted by popularity. (And if you want to see some of the other places I’ve written this year, you can check my author pages for Intouch Solutions, Medical Marketing & Media, and PM360.)

Thank you, so much, for reading. That’s one of the ways in which I’m so incredibly blessed.

1. The Day After: We Have to Matter. “It’s hard to feel ignored. Like what you value isn’t valuable, like your participation isn’t desired, like you’re being left behind. It hurts.”
2. Pop Your Bubble. “We want our media to satisfy our needs. And often those needs are closer to ‘comfort’ than ‘challenge.’ But it is too dangerous.”
3. The Opacity of Digital Living. “Kids are missing learning about adult life, and developing separate worlds sooner.”
4. Balance Is Bullshit. “Work-life balance is an unreachable fallacy and I am sick of pretending otherwise.”
5. The Casual Devaluing of Creative Work; Or, The Pinteresting of Society. “Nobody will value what you do unless you do. One of the hardest things. But one of the most important.”
6. Why Hamilton Matters. “This year, in this country, we can use all the connection and humanity we can get. We’re getting enough of separation and distance.”
7. Simple, Not Easy. “One simple checklist. It’s not complicated. It’s just really hard.”
8. Suggestibility and Being Elitist. “I think success and failure are both contagious – both consciously and subconsciously.”
9. Avoiding Regret and Other Impossibilities. “I found this article, about what a nurse learned from her patients. I thought it through.”
10. How Buzzwords Mask Magic: A Short List of Trendy Terms. “Here are a few phrases that sound familiar if you’re interested in digital health.”
11. When Will Big Pharma Become the Underdogs? “The challenges the industry are facing are not ones that Big Pharma has a proven ability to handle yet.”
12. Was Shakespeare Catholic? “Sorry, Dad. You raised a nerd.”
13. Five Ways Texting Can Change Your Life. “I’ve had several conversations about texting lately: the etiquette of it, the worries it induces, the problems it raises.”
14. The Gauntlet. “Why can’t I resist a questionnaire?”
15. Being Female During the 2016 Election. “This election seems to be asking if the small moments of being dismissed, and the bad moments of harassment and discrimination and assault – is the status quo we’re willing to not only accept, but elect.”
16. Are You an Option or an Imposter? “Every time I read something good, all I think is, what’s the point of me if that person is saying something so much more perfectly?”
17. Building Hedges. “Here’s to hedge building. May we need it rarely, and when we do, may the hedges be strong.”